A fact from Thomas Humphrey Metcalfe appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 28 August 2018 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:
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In the section "Death and capture of the Fair American", the text has Thomas as a "relatively inexperienced teenage captain". However, the article has his birth date as "c. 1761", which would have made him around 29 years of age at the time of his death on March 16, 1790. Bahudhara (talk) 01:17, 28 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
The source identified in n.3 in the article indicates that the Spanish at Nootka Sound described Thomas as a teenager. Could that be the source of the error? Terry Thorgaard (talk) 21:38, 28 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Oh good catch, that's my mistake. I couldn't find a source with his birth year. The best I could find is that he was 18 or 19 during his experiences at Nootka Sound, Mexico, and Hawaii. So I subtracted "about 19" from 1790 and got "c. 1761". Oops. I'll change it to c. 1771. Pfly (talk) 05:51, 29 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
PS, the n.3 source is an article by Murray Morgan, who was a well-respected historian of the Pacific Northwest. Should be a solid source. He seems to have had access to Spanish records I have not seen myself. Unfortunately he doesn't cite sources in his article. Pfly (talk) 06:13, 29 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
